[momraine]

My daughter saw something that said "Adoption awareness month" and she was asking me what we do for awareness. I had not really thought about it. Our friends all know we adopted. But, I never thought about how to celebrate the month or increase awareness. What do you guys do?

[crick]

We don't really do that much as a family for raising awareness to others. We discuss things as a family and with dh's recent reunion with his bmom, it's been a pretty big topic of late.

When sharing news with some family and friends, it has been interesting to see their reactions. It's all been positive and met with a "How COOL!"

This week I wrote a thank you note to our adoption agency. Next week I want to do something else. I need more ideas for something we as a family can do instead of it being just me though!

[loveajax]

I don't do anything to "celebrate" this month. I also don't celebrate DD's finalization day. (I sound like a grinch!).

I am meeting with a friend tomorrow who is a foster care reviewer (volunteer basis). Her stories break my heart, and I think I may try to do something like that.

[Hadley2]

Outside of the ever-changing world and requirements of fost-adopt, I don't think I understand what "awareness" needs to be built?

[crick]

I think that would mean something different to everyone Hadley. For me I have run into people who are totally unaware that you can adopt from foster care without fostering first (in my area), who believe that all the kids are "unadoptable" or all have something very wrong with them.

Things like that I think people do need more awareness on.

[mommytoEli]

Originally Posted by loveajax

I don't do anything to "celebrate" this month. I also don't celebrate DD's finalization day. (I sound like a grinch!).

me neither. we do a family day celebration on valentine's day. it is the day our first 2 kids moved in with us, and we celebrate that day as the day we first became a family. i'd have to look up everyone's finalization dates. lol. we can be grinches together.


for adoption awareness month....i don't do anything, but i do like when i see them doing something about it at church. i always stop by and see how i can help, but that is about it. at least once a week i feel like a big billboard for adoption, so i think i do my part. lol.

i like crick's idea of writing a thank you note to the agency. some of mine might sound more like "i'm glad you are out of my life" notes though...lol....so i'll have to keep them simple.

[sunshinemomma]

In our area the gov't agency invites us to a tea and wants us to bring a friend that may be interested in adopting an older child. The purpose here is to have more people adopt older children.

With the way they have supported us after our adoption through them I don't know that I would bring a "friend".

[Drywall]

Sunshinemomma...any help that can be provided to older children to increase adoption rates, would be welcome.

It is unclear why parents willing to adopt, see older children as having a red flag attached. Those older children are shunned, and by passed a large part of the time.

CW's readily admit that once children have reached 5-6, their chances for adoption decrease significantly with increasing age.

It is unclear if that is related to a fear that the a-parents have that older children will come with too much baggage, or be so mentally or physically challenged that they are beyond parental help.

Maybe they fear the stories those children will have regarding their lives in foster care...

Perhaps they look at them as wanting younger children so they can instill their own family values. Or maybe they look at them as being unable to accept individual family values because they have had so many different family experiences through foster care.

It is a sad commentary that children become part of a system that attempts to help, and yet so often, they live out their lives as an outcast.

Allowing children to age out of a system that somehow doesn't protect or give them the tools to move on, is truly sad.

I wish you the best.

[OnTheJourney]

I think that we all advocate adoption awareness to some extent when we share our stories with family, friends, ect...

For adoption awareness month, last year I wrote a letter to our parish priest asking if he could incorporate adoption into one of his homilies during the month of November.

Our agency just moved, so they are holding an open house next week and have produced some brochures they are encouraging us to take and leave at local places.

This year I am going to try to make a couple "adoption awareness" children's outfits/items. Then have some sort of contest or raffle or draw for them on my blog or FB page, I don't know yet... It is still more of a plan in my head. I wish it would have come to me sooner than this week so i could have had them ready!